I'm willing to bet the U.S. World Cup soccer
Perseverance pays - In business, sports, and life. If there was one defining, endearing characteristic of the U.S. team, it was the ability to persevere against all odds, to play their absolute best when the field looked the bleakest. Thoroughly outplayed by Ghana, it would have been very easy to give in to a dispirited draw when a late miracle goal by John Brooks gave them their lone win. Similarly, down 2-0 to in extra time to Belgium, when it would have easy to begin packing their bags for the flight home, they went on the attack and for the last 10 minutes thoroughly dominated a far superior team that was relieved to stagger off with a 2-1 win. The U.S. team lost the game but won respect.
Little great is accomplished with out exceptional collaboration - Soccer, like business, is the ultimate team game. Though a brilliant individual effort occasionally results in a goal, far more often success is the result of numerous perfectly linked passes. Having worked in a large corporation for many years, I came to appreciate how critical collaboration was to the successful completion of any project of any size. I used to call it #teamplayerism. The U.S. had #teamplayerism, genuine interpersonal chemistry, and it showed.
Diversity helps you build a better product - Whether it's diversity of thought, ability, or background. The American team was a combination of so many ethnicities, it reminded me of the old Hawaiian phrase "poi dog" - for a dog that's a mixture of many breeds. It would take too long to even try to list them all, but it was fascinating how effectively our German coach Jurgen Klinsmann utilized German-Americans with some African-American ancestry (John Brooks, Jermaine Jones, Julian Green)... and Chris Wondolowski combines Polish and Native American background. And on and on.
Leave it all on the field - In business or soccer, there's no convincing excuse to not give your best effort. If there's one enduring image for me of the 2014 World Cup, it was the hollow-eyed Clint Dempsey, he of the West Texas trailer park background, playing with a broken nose from game one, always looking dog-tired at the edge of utter exhaustion... except that if you gave the beaten dog a foot or two of daylight he'd find a way to slip the defense and score.
Dempsey - and the entire team - left it all on the field. All games, all the time.
It's one of the oldest cliches around: "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." I generally try to avoid cliches. But this one feels like it fits just right.
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Victor is author of The Type B Manager: Leading Successfully in a Type A World (Prentice Hall Press).
